"No," Imelda said quietly.
It was she who had read the last intelligence brief, and she said the word with the flatness of a woman reporting a death.
"They are doing nothing. Nothing at all. Every great house that could intervene has declined to intervene. The borders are quiet. The levies are at home. It is as if every great family in the kingdom received the same instruction on the same morning, and the instruction was to stand aside and let it burn."
Aldwin's face went grey. "And us? What happens to us if the noble factions come for the academy? It would be bad. Commoner professors, headmistress. You know how the noble houses see us. Hired tutors. Barely people. If a faction army swarms the capital and starts settling accounts, the first doors they knock down are ours..."
The headmistress stopped.
